


another way to learn

by FlowerButton



Series: who lives, who dies, who tells your story [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Light Angst, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Pre-Epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 17:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12964668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlowerButton/pseuds/FlowerButton
Summary: Hugo didn't like books and so found another way of answering his questions.He had a lot of questions.





	another way to learn

**Author's Note:**

> The title sucks but at least it's accurate?
> 
> Hello! I'd apologise for being away for so long but school has been killing me so I'm really more relieved to be back! It's not on the regular, I'm afraid, because school still hasn't stopped killing me, but the winter hols are coming up so hopefully I can do something non-school related then!
> 
> I wrote this about three months ago and just didn't post it so enjoy my late, late addition to this series! I'm also not 100% happy with this one but it's better than the first draft(s) so enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: still don't own these characters!

Questions, Hugo found, were easier for him to answer than others. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t curious - quite the opposite; he loved thinking up questions to ask his parents, his sister, his family, their pet cat (though Hugo was still trying to learn to translate). He just preferred answering the questions himself than waiting for someone to answer them for him.

Figuring out answers alone started when he was around six. Rose had recently gotten her first broom and she was ecstatic about finally joining in the games that their older cousins held every fortnight. Hugo, still confused about how the broom was flying, tried to ask her how her Firebolt Mark 3 was different to their Nana Granger’s brooms in Australia.

“How’s it different? Magic, duh,” Rose replied, as if it was simple. She tossed her auburn plait over her shoulder, a style she had copied off of their Aunt Ginny; her hair was curly enough that it had to be replaited every other hour but Rose didn’t seem to care.

Hugo shuffled closer to the broom and poked it, intrigued. It didn’t look like the magic that their parents did. For starters, their wands, which produced the magic, were much smaller and they didn’t fly by themselves. Rose’s broom just needed a kick-off and then it soared up into the air, without any sparks or flashes. Hugo had watched his parents do magic for years and there was never any spell without a light, so how was the magic in Rose’s broom anything like the magic in his parents’ wands?

“But there’s no light,” he tried to argue. Rose, by this point, only wanted to get into the air and fly about with Albus and James, and so she shooed her brother away from her broom before mounting it and shooting off. Hugo was determined to find an answer, however, and began walking between adults.

His Aunt Ginny would have been his first option but she was up in the air, refereeing the match. Lily might have known, but Lily was staring wide-eyed up at everyone and shouting for Teddy to “throw me the Quaffle, I can score from here, I promise!” Hugo’s options were still vast, though, and he continued to think through people to ask.

Uncle Harry was away on business so Hugo couldn’t ask him. His mum was half-watching Rose on her broom and half-talking to his Uncle Percy about the difficult ‘boo-rack-race-ee’ in the ‘Min-esther-y’, and the last time he’d gone near his Uncle Percy there had been an awkward conversation about books he’d read and Hugo wanted to avoid that. His Aunt Audrey was busy talking to Dominique and Grandad Artie about Muggle stuff which, on any other day, Hugo would have joined in with, but since he was focusing on magic, he didn’t think it would really be easy to slip it into the conversation. His Nana Molly was out of the question because she would try to get him to help with the washing up and he didn’t want to do that.

Uncle Bill was cheering for Louis’, making him an opportune person to ask, but then Hugo would have to sit by Victoire, who was making what Rose had dubbed ‘lovey-eyes’ at Teddy and Hugo didn’t want to have to watch that. His Aunt Fleur was also a possibility, but she was always heavily involved in the match and her excitement kind of scared Hugo a little.

He glanced around, eyes landing on his Uncle George. His Aunt Angelina was sat with him, both staring at what his Grandad Artie had called a ‘comp-oo-ter’ and talking animatedly to it. Hugo was certain that they were talking to his Uncle Charlie over the Muggle Internet that Hugo’s mum was very wary about. He didn’t want to bother them, especially when his Aunt Angelina was eyeing up the Quidditch game above him.

And then, Hugo struck gold: his dad. Why hadn’t he thought of him before? He could always go to speak to his dad, even when his dad was talking to someone else. It was what made him the  _ best dad ever _ \- he always had time for him.

Moving as quickly as his legs would carry him, Hugo scrambled across the grass outside of his Nana Molly’s house, over to his father, who was leaning back on a chair and reading a paper that his Auntie Luna - who was in Sweden for three whole weeks - had given him the last time she’d come over.

(It had been two days before. She had given Hugo a pair of earrings with ‘dee-rid-gee-bell’ plums on and told him they’d keep him safe from ‘Nar-gills’ and even though Hugo didn’t understand, he thanked her because they were really nice earrings - like his Uncle Bill’s. Then she’d winked when his mum’s back had been turned and handed him a chocolate bar too and he’d  _ really _ thanked her before running off to share the snack with Lorcan, Lysander and Rose.)

“Dad?” Hugo asked, hurtling himself into his dad’s knees. His father flinched, like he always did when Hugo moved too quickly, but his face switched almost immediately into a grin.

“Heya, kidder,” he said, putting the magazine on the table and leaning down to pick Hugo up. He was swung through the air to be placed on the table in front of his dad, so his trainers were leaning on his dad’s knees. “What’s up?”

“I have a question,” Hugo said with urgency. Now there was a chance of getting an answer, there was absolutely no way he was going to let it up. His dad’s grin didn’t fall but Hugo noticed he quirked an eyebrow, curious, so Hugo continued. “Why does Rose’s broom fly?”

“That’s because of magic,” his dad said. “Someone in the shop cast a couple of spells on it, like you’ve seen me and your mum do on things around the house.”

“But that’s different,” Hugo replied, slowly. “Yours and Mum’s magic comes from a wand and that’s got colours when it does magic. Rose’s broom doesn’t have the colours. It just… flies.”

He shrugged a little, as if to prove his point, and focused intently on his dad. By now his father seemed to be focusing on some way to answer him and Hugo was growing more and more excited by the second.

Then his dad shrugged.

“I guess I don’t know, kidder,” he said apologetically. “Do you want to ask your mum?”

Hugo’s heart dropped and he blinked back tears. For a moment, he wondered if facing his Uncle Percy’s awkward book talks was worth the answer - it wasn’t. So he shook his head and his dad’s expression fell.

“I’m sorry. We can go to the library later in the week, if you want? Find out there?”

Hugo wanted to groan - he didn’t like the library. Rose always spent ages in it, curled up with books that she complained about, and Hugo would go bored out of his mind. He liked books, especially the ones with the moving pictures in, but Rose’s books were boring and the kids in the children’s area always stared at him weirdly, so he didn’t like the library at all.

“No,” he said. “That’s okay.” He moved to shuffle down and his dad pulled a sad face as he picked him off the table to place him on the grass again. Before he ran off, Hugo paused. “You’ll tell me if you find out, right?”

“Absolutely,” his dad assured him, ruffling his hair. “You’ll tell me if you find out?”

Hugo had to grin and he nodded almost violently as his brain began whirring.

This was, of course, now a mission to find out the answer and tell his dad. He wasn’t going to use books to find out the answer because that would be too easy. No, Hugo was going to devise a plan and try to see if there was anything similar between a broom’s magic and his parents’ wands’ magic.

Two weeks later, he set his plan in motion and it ended in a blaze of glory. His mother found him as they were packing away the brooms and she swore so much that his dad had to cover his ears. Six old brooms had failed to work with a blue spark and so Hugo had tried to use his Uncle Percy’s wand to make them produce the same sparks as it did when he waved it. The remnants of the wood were scattered across the broomshed, as were several scorch marks and a few broken windows. Sat in the middle of it all was Hugo, with glass in one hand and his Uncle Percy’s wand in the other, reciting words off the top of his head whilst pointing the wand at a seventh wooden broom.

His punishment of staying inside for three whole days whilst Rose went over to play with Albus and James was nothing compared to the fact that Hugo had not gotten an answer. He had discovered, however, that trying this sort of stuff was fun. Since books were boring, this would be how he got his answers instead.

It continued.

When figuring out how a ‘D-V-D player’ worked, he almost electrocuted himself, which landed him in more trouble with his mum, but he did understand it better than anyone in his family did afterwards. He was unsure of how to cook like his dad so tried to make dinner one day; it failed horrifically and ended up with several Muggle fire-people walking around the house, but at least his dad got him a cookbook for his seventh birthday. After displaying his magic at the age of eight, he wondered how he could float in a room again and ended up stuck to the ceiling. He didn’t do it again, but he got his answer: puff out his chest, close his eyes and imagine himself on the ceiling.

Sometimes the questions were tiny in comparison, like what colour cake would his mum have for her birthday (red, like always; he discovered this by sneaking downstairs at night to look at it) or how does the cat live (on four paws, which was discovered by copying him for an entire day). And no matter how much trouble these got him into with his mum (quite a lot, though most of the tellings off were finished with a hug and an exasperated laugh), his dad was always excited for every discovery he made (except the cat, for some reason, but Hugo knew that his dad and the cat didn’t really get along so he put it down to that).

It got harder as he got older, though. Whilst his dad and, in her own way, his mum were supportive of his methods of learning, no one else really was. Rose found him very interesting and he’d seen her writing down his actions, as if he was a thing  _ she _ was learning about, and Albus seemed genuinely confused by him. Lily laughed at every single one of his stories, even if they weren’t funny, and James was in the stage of his life where he was the ‘cool kid’ and so even talking to Hugo was a huge event worthy of celebration.

Hugo tried not to mind. He tried to focus on discovering things his own way, but he couldn’t when no one took him seriously.

The problem peaked on Rose’s eleventh birthday. Her Hogwarts letter flew in through the window and the entire week was spent with the Potters as Albus and Rose talked and went to Diagon Alley. Hugo stayed with Lily and his Nana Molly on the days his family went out, which was fun, though his Nana Molly kept sniffing about how her grandkids were all growing up and asking Hugo to do the washing up. He was just figuring out how the bubbles appeared in the soap by blowing some through his fingers when Rose hurtled into the kitchen and threw herself into his Nana Molly’s arms, sobbing dramatically.

“Merlin, Rosie! You’re going to give your Nana a heart attack! What’s got you all upset now, eh, sweetheart?”

“M-Mum told us about the W-w-war!” Rose wailed as their Nana Molly leant down to hug her. “M-Mum said - she said -”

“Hey, now, let it out.”

Fascinated by the interaction, Hugo watched as his nan and sister shuffled their way out of the kitchen, his grandma cooing softly at his crying sister, who was not making it easy to move. Moments later, his dad appeared, eyes a little red.

“You alright?” he asked, moving to clap his hands on his son’s shoulders. Hugo felt a question burn at the tip of his tongue, but he bit it down.

“Rose was crying,” he said instead, hoping an answer would appear. His dad stiffened for a moment before running a hand through Hugo’s curls.

“I know,” he said, without elaborating. “I know.”

Later that night, when everyone had stopped crying and Hugo was back at home, he began to plan how he would figure this question out.

“First,” he said quietly, speaking to Ed the Owl in the corner of his room. For some reason, Ed the Owl (his full name, courtesy of Lily, aged five) always slept in Hugo’s room, regardless of whether Hugo had the window open or not. Hugo had long since stopped shutting it, if only for some peace and quiet before bed.

“First, we’re going to do some digging. Rose said Mum told her about the War so Mum must know some stuff. So, tomorrow, when Dad’s cutting the grass and Rose is doing her school stuff and Mum is at work, I’m going to sneak upstairs - yes, you can come too, just meet me here after breakfast - I’m going to sneak upstairs to the attic.”

Ed the Owl didn’t stir from his sleep, but Hugo continued.

“Dad sounded like he knew stuff too, so we’ll check his boxes as well. Otherwise, we’ll have to go to Nana Molly’s and Grandad Artie’s and check their attic and Dad says there’s a ghoul up there so I’m hoping we just have to stay here.”

Set in his decision, Hugo rolled over in bed and fell asleep.

The next morning, Rose used Ed the Owl to send Albus a message so he couldn’t join Hugo on his quest.

(“What does the letter say?” Hugo asked his sister.

“Mind your business. It’s adult stuff,” she replied.)

He waited until Rose was in her room and his dad was outside before sneaking downstairs and grabbing the attic key off the hook. As quiet as he could be, Hugo unlocked the attic door and shuffled his way up the steps, careful to close the door behind him. That way, if Rose left her room, she’d think he was in his room too.

He’d been up into the attic before, to help his mum get the decorations down for Christmas, but it had been with the door open and the lights on. Thinking hard, Hugo stumbled for the lightswitch, catching it as he almost thudded his way up the top step. The light flickered on, illuminating the room around him, and Hugo took in the small size of the room. The skylights had blinds covering them and in the centre of the room, on the large green rug that linked the spare furniture together, was a collection of boxes labelled, “Ron’s stuff,” and “Mione’s stuff.” Hugo noticed a few labelled, “Baby Gear,” and “Photographs of Kids,” in his mum’s handwriting and he avoided those.

The closest box labelled, “Mione’s stuff,” held nothing except old school books that were really detailed, and so Hugo turned to the next box. Inside that one was a collection of miscellaneous junk that Hugo hadn’t seen before. In between old pieces of parchment with Potions’ recipes on, Hugo noticed photographs of people he barely recognised.

His mum looked a lot younger in the first one, her skin almost glowing in candlelight. It was one of the only moving photographs that Hugo pulled out, and in it, his mum was reading to a baby bump. Hugo assumed it was Rose since it looked as if their living room was full of stuff that Hugo had seen in Rose’s room (old baby blankets that she kept in her bed when she was scared; Hugo didn’t judge. He had Mr Snuffles, a toy otter his dad had bought for him as a kid).

Hugo put that photo down and picked up the next one, of his dad, mum and Uncle Harry all laughing with their arms swung around one another. In the background, he could see his Uncle Neville and Auntie Luna pointing at something above them, and he assumed his Aunt Ginny took the photo. It looked as if his dad was about Teddy’s age in the photo, maybe a little older, and his Uncle Harry was wearing dark robes like the Auror Trainees did. His mum was kissing his dad’s cheek, laughing into his shoulder, and his dad was ruffling his Uncle Harry’s hair affectionately. They looked happy and Hugo got the feeling that this was a moment of freedom for them.

He glanced down at the pile and began flicking through them. The moving ones were all on top, with his Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny in a lot of them. Some of the people in the photos looked familiar but Hugo couldn’t name most of them.

Then the photos stopped moving and Hugo’s stomach lurched.

They looked like the photos that Teddy took that summer, the ones that printed out immediately when taken. The first was of a room that Hugo had never seen before, full of hammocks and candles and people. His parents weren’t anywhere to be seen, but in the background his Uncle Neville was talking to a brown haired girl. He was definitely Teddy’s age or younger, and Hugo felt like he was invading a personal moment.

Next was a photo of some scars on a boy. There was scratches over his skin, like someone had raked claws over his arm, and large clots of blood were forming over his cuts. He looked tired but he was smiling at the camera.

A photo of a sleeping girl that Hugo had the feeling wasn’t sleeping.

Two boys curled around one another, wands in hand, the one with his head tucked under the other, both looking about Rose’s age.

Another of his Uncle Neville, now talking to a group en masse.

Aunt Ginny, bleeding from her cheek and holding someone tightly.

Another still body.

A green flash. That was the last photo, like someone had thrown a mess of green paint at the lens. Hugo paused for a moment.

He could turn back now. He knew what a war was - the pictures showed it well enough. But Hugo had come up here to find out what had happened to his parents and he’d seen neither of them in the photographs.

Determined, Hugo pressed on, rooting through the box to see if anything else was interesting. A bag of clothes sat at the bottom, with some lanterns and pieces of wood, but they told Hugo nothing except his parents went camping at some point without him or Rose. Shuffling on, he began delving into his dad’s stuff and it wasn’t long before he pulled out a thin locket. It made him shiver and he quickly put it back, avoiding it by picking up the lighter in the opposite corner.

He flicked it, idly hoping it would do something, and the light vanished.

“Woah,” he whispered in the pitch black. He flicked it again and the light returned. Knowing that he’d want to learn how it worked later, he put it aside carefully and reached back in the box, touching something long and cold. Frowning, he pulled it out and gaped in awe at the giant tooth in his hands.

It was how his dad caught him.

“Hugo!” he exclaimed, and Hugo jumped, almost dropping the tooth. “Put it back, now!”

He sounded angry, angrier than Hugo had heard before, but also scared. Quickly, and guiltily, Hugo shoved the tooth back in the box as his dad hurried towards him. He didn’t dare look up at him, too nervous, too regretful, and he felt the tears begin to build.

“What are you doing up here?” his dad demanded, reaching down and pulling Hugo to his feet. Leaning down, he brushed off Hugo’s pyjama pants, knocking away the dust that Hugo hadn’t even noticed before.

“I-I was looking for an answer,” Hugo mumbled quietly. It was the answer he gave his mum every time he fell into trouble, and it felt right to give it to his dad as well. He rubbed his eyes with his wrist and sniffed shortly, hoping that his dad didn’t hear.

“Hey, hey, hush now,” his dad said, softly, and Hugo felt the tears bubble over. He began to cry, overwhelmed by everything that was happening, and his dad dropped down to kneel in front of him, taking him into a hug as he did so.

There was a lulled quiet for a good long while as Hugo sobbed into his dad’s Chudley Cannons’ 2006 shirt, fists clenching the cotton tightly. His dad rubbed his back, soothingly murmuring words that Hugo couldn’t hear. As he came down from his wailing, Hugo sniffed and his father shuffled back so they were looking at one another.

Hugo’s father’s eyes were red, like they had been the day before, and Hugo felt another load of tears slip down his cheeks. He’d made his dad  _ cry _ and that was the worst feeling of all.

“M’sorry,” he mumbled through chokes of tears. He squinted and rubbed his eyes again. “I-I didn’t mean t’make you c-cry.”

“Hey, hey, no,” his dad said, rubbing his own eyes. “Hey, no, Hugo. I’m not crying. Look at me, kidder. I’m not crying, it’s okay.”

Slowly the tears stopped enough for Hugo to see clearer and, true to his word, there were no tears on his dad’s face. Hugo sniffed.

“Now,” his dad said, taking Hugo’s hands and squeezing them reassuringly. “I need to ask you a few questions, okay? And you need to be really honest with me. Can you do that?”

Hugo nodded, sniffing as his dad pulled a tissue from his pocket.

“Thank you. What boxes did you look in, Hugo?”

Shakily, Hugo pointed to his mum’s box of photographs and then down at his dad’s box. He didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath from his dad and he bit his lip to stop from crying again.

“Okay. Did you look at everything?”

“N-No,” Hugo said. “The photographs with Uncle Neville and Aunt Ginny in. A-And the locket but I didn’t like it so I put it back. And the tooth. And the l-lighter.” He gestured to his feet, where the lighter lay from where he’d left it, and his dad’s shoulders stiffened.

“Did you touch the end of the tooth?” his dad demanded, his voice a little harsher now. When Hugo nodded, he gave him a long glance over, sighed and relaxed. “Okay. That’s good. Hugo, this is the last question: why did you come up here?”

“B-Because I was looking for an answer,” Hugo repeated. “About the War.”

His dad let out a soft breath before nodding slowly.

“This is because of Rose yesterday, right?” he checked. When Hugo nodded, he hummed, as if he’d expected this. “And you didn’t ask your mum or me because…?”

“I don’t usually,” Hugo said. “I find answers my way.”

“Like with the cat?”

“Yeah. And - I wanted to understand but I don’t like b-books.” It seemed pointless to say, since his dad knew very well that Hugo didn’t like books, but it also felt necessary.

For a moment, Hugo’s dad said nothing, just looked at Hugo with an unreadable expression, and then he smiled. He stood up and reached down for the lighter, placing it back in the box before pulling Hugo towards the stairs.

“We’re going to go downstairs,” he said, “and wait for your mum to get home and then we’re going to go through these boxes. And you can ask all the questions you want to.”

For once, Hugo didn’t have to discover anything from a book (though his sister tried to hand him a few) and, after several hours of everyone teary-eyed, he found himself perfectly sure that he could ask his parents anything he wanted.

This, of course, didn’t stop him from following around Ed the Owl to see where he went when he wasn’t sleeping in Hugo’s room, but Hugo liked to think that it was simply easier than to read about it in a book. As Rose joined him, he found he was absolutely right.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](https://the-grape-bowl.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Headcanons: Hugo Weasley absolutely becomes a Ravenclaw and discovers a talent for getting around the magical borders at Hogwarts in regards to Muggle electricity. Whilst this is technically against the rules, he gets away with this because the teachers love listening to the Muggle radio in their various offices (Hugo's greatest Hogwarts achievement in Albus' eyes is getting Madame Pince hooked on 'One Direction' because she spends less time yelling at them for talking too loudly when they make references to songs).


End file.
